Relating subjective ride quality ratings to objective measures

Agencies have long used subjective roughness ratings from panels of users to inform policy development on road maintenance strategies. The commoditization electronics motivated the more objective, automated, and cost-effective measurement technologies. Consequently, there has been an explosion ensemble measurements using smartphones or connected vehicles. Nevertheless, agencies no means relating those sensor-based their customary linguistic scale human perceived levels. This research relates regular passengers public bus transit simultaneous smartphone-based objective measures roughness. findings are that riders consistently distinguished between extreme values measured but not intermediate values. Ratings also less distinguishable for smoother rides than rougher rides. experiments reveal a phenomenon acclimation leads biased segment. • A smartphone levels 164 Riders can better distinguish among higher lower difficulty discerning Policymakers should be aware in ride quality surveys.